The corridor was quiet.
No screams. No system alerts. Just Kairo's breathing and the photograph in his hand—edges curling with heat. The girl's face stared back at him, now fully visible.
Lira.
Alive. Smiling.
And beside her, another him. Younger. Less broken. Not yet rewritten.
He clenched the photo in his fist.
[MEMORY STABILIZED]
[VOIDPOINT +2 EARNED]
[WARNING: S.I.N. CORRUPTION LEVEL: 4%]
The mark on his palm flared again.
Pride. It pulsed in rhythm with something deeper—something beneath him.
He followed it.
Down through the empty cathedral halls, across frozen courtyards, past whispering statues. The world shifted around him—architecture folding in impossible ways. Every hallway curved toward one destination.
The throne room.
And she was waiting.
Eiras sat alone atop a staircase of light, her expression unreadable. No crown. No guards. Just presence.
"You've come further than last time," she said. "Your eyes are clearer."
Kairo stopped at the base of the steps.
"I'm not here to kneel."
"Then why are you trembling?" she asked.
He hadn't realized he was.
She rose, descending the steps slowly.
"You've absorbed a Fragment. You've remembered a piece. Now you must choose."
"Choose what?"
"Whether to become what the system wants…" She touched her chest. "…or become what it fears."
She extended her hand.
Kairo stared at it.
His system pulsed—
[OPTIONAL MERGE: S.I.N. FRAGMENT – PRIDE // CORE SYNC]
[EFFECT: MAJOR POWER INCREASE]
[WARNING: SELF-CONCEPT AT RISK]
"Power," she whispered, "is a language. Accept me, and you'll learn to speak it."
He stepped forward.
Paused.
Then reached not for her hand—
—but for the mark on his own.
And activated it.
[S.I.N. CORE MERGE – FORCED SYNC ENGAGED]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: VOICE//IMPOSE - LV.1][CORRUPTION SPIKE: 9%]
Light erupted around him.
The throne shattered. Eiras vanished—no scream, no resistance, just static. The domain trembled.
Statues cried out.
The sky split.
And Kairo stood, cloak flickering, eyes glowing faint violet-gold.
He had accepted the Fragment.
But not the Witch.
[FRAGMENT ABSORPTION COMPLETE]
[NEW STATUS: ARCHIVE PROXY (UNSTABLE)]
[NEXT TARGET DESIGNATION: SYNE // ENVY]
His voice echoed across the ruins.
"This time, I'm not just surviving."
A beat.
"I'm rewriting."
The system flared with one last prompt:
[VOLUME 1 COMPLETE]
[BEGIN NEXT PHASE: SYNE'S REFLECTION]
And high above, in the broken mirror sky, seven thrones turned—
One was now empty.
And another had started to crack.